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My first efforts.

04-26-2009, 11:58 AM

Teaching myself, reading a lot and using my imagination, all the while having some fun with the toys.

The grill is close to a finish, it is a superb grill, just need to find out if it will smoke. Anyhow it has a few hours of work left before I can paint it.
The bird is a spade and bike part, with other odds and ends.

Comment

The bird back is made with an old shovel, cut the outer shape and the fins with a plasma cutter. The legs and body are cut from the rear frame of a childs bike I found on my local mechanics sctrap heap. I also found a stainless steel exhaust system, that has been producing a number of ideas, obviously I do not want to waste that find. The front yolk of the bike will be used for a larger bird. The head nods up and down for a long time after being moved, thete is a lot of weight on that spring.
All of my stuff ends up being TIG brazed with silicone bronze in some place, helps reduce the heat and also should lengthen the life of the joint by not rusting, well that is my theory.
The hinges on the back of the grill ended up being steel tigged but the handle and upper vent pipe were gas brazed. I have got to the stage where I try and use as little Argon as possible, it has become pricey.
I got a Millermatic while in the middle of both things. Got a roll of Silicone bronze for brazing with that but have found it is hard to do when joining thin material. It does not behave like steel Migging, sounds nothing like the traditional Mig sound and deposits it like someone tigging fast but not pritty looking when finished, on thick stuff it is a lot easier. Getting the settings is very hard because the chart does not come close, since the melting temp of the silicone bronze is a lot lower than the steel that the chart is meant for.
The smoker comment is probably correct, the box will probably not be enough but there is a traditional grate system below and two vents cut underneath with small doors. I will try it out this week if I get time. The steel in the tank is the best I have worked with, hard as **** and boy it needs some heat input to get it to puddle.
I can not get the site to download better images, there is a lot more detail in some of the images that can not be seen, anyone know if this can be solved, meaning getting a bigger image posted !!!!!!!!!!